microsoft

Low Latency is a weekly comic on CNET's Crave blog written by CNET editor and podcast host Jeff Bakalar and illustrated by Blake Stevenson. Be sure to check Crave every Friday at 8 a.m. PT for new panels! Want more? Here's every Low Latency comic so far.

Microsoft's policy concerning used Xbox One games has proven a bit confusing, but a new report may have spilled more concrete details.

Citing information from "retail sources," gaming news site MCV claims that Microsoft and gaming publishers will take a bite out of the sale of each used Xbox One game. In the process of selling a used game, original owners would also see the game wiped from their online accounts so they no longer can play it.

Microsoft has already confirmed that Xbox One users who install a game on the console's hard drive will no longer need the disc … Read more

Visit Amazon.com and you'll find a bevy of recommendations to fill your digital shopping cart: books similar to what you've read on your Kindle or clothes and gadgets based on what else you've looked at.

Now Amazon is tinkering with ad technology that would flash ads for you even when you're not on Amazon sites. And those ads might not even direct shopper back to Amazon's sites.

It's still early days, but if Amazon's new strategy plays out, it could become the Web's next advertising giant. Sure, it already serves up … Read more

Microsoft's "iPad vs. Windows" campaign now includes iPad vs. Surface RT. Is Microsoft picking the right fight?

On the back of new ads that zero on the iPad's (purported) weaknesses, Microsoft has thrown up a comparison page that stacks the iPad against four Windows 8 tablets.

Microsoft isn't using the Surface RT in the anti-iPad ads. Rather, the Asus VivoTab is its weapon of choice.

But Surface RT is front and center on the comparison page. One small problem: the (highly-selective) Microsoft feature chart doesn't necessarily portray Surface RT as the clear winner (see … Read more

The U.S. International Trade Commission on Thursday said it won't review a final ruling that found Microsoft to be in the clear of infringing on patents held by Motorola Mobility, which Google acquired last year.

The ruling (PDF) follows an initial determination in favor of Microsoft on March 22 of this year, as well as a final initial determination from last month from an ITC administrative law judge.

At stake were potential future sales of the console in the U.S., which could have been halted if Motorola had won.

"This is a win for Xbox customers … Read more

For years we've heard about the ever-widening appeal of video games and game-playing devices. Women gamers, senior gamers, casual gamers, and even the kind of social/mobile gamers who would never refer to themselves with the dreaded G word.

But, when it was time to reveal its first major gaming hardware of the post-iPhone era (the first-gen iPhone was released in 2007, the Xbox 360 in 2005), what did Microsoft do? It narrowcast the launch presentation of the Xbox One to a very targeted demographic group. And no, it wasn't the cliched teenage or twentysomething twitch gamer, it … Read more

Leaked from today's 404 episode:

- Amazon's Kindle Worlds will pay writers to write fan fiction.

- Hire your favorite musician to write you a song .

- And now a reading from the worst fan fiction I've ever read.

- Follow Russ Frushtick on Twitter.… Read more

The story so far: Microsoft has dispensed with defense and is throwing at least five (very) wide receivers at Apple -- and Google, Samsung, and whoever else stands in the way of it and nirvana.

Wednesday, Redmond released an ad in which it kidnapped Siri and persuaded her to denigrate the iPad, as if it was, oh, the rotund man in glasses who used to represent Microsoft.

Thursday, the company decided to release another ad offering that the iPad was nothing other than a slab of old bloat. At least when compared, for example, to the slightly lesser-known Asus VivoTab. … Read more

Microsoft will finally deliver a Kinect sensor for Windows sometime next year.

The company announced Thursday that the Kinect for Windows sensor will use the same set of technologies key to the new Kinect sensor for the Xbox One, both of which will allow people to issue commands using voice and gestures.

The sensor will include a high-definition color camera and a noise-isolating multi-microphone array. Also part of the system will be a technology called Time-of-Flight, which measures how long it takes for photons to bounce off a person or object. Combined, these features promise greater accuracy and precision in … Read more